


Follow the Light

by Rennll



Series: This is where I put original characters and plot bunnies, then watch it inbreed and spiral out of control [3]
Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Action/Adventure, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Getting to Know Each Other, Heartless Attacks (Kingdom Hearts), Long Shot, No Explanations Given, Realm of Darkness (Kingdom Hearts), Silly
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-28
Updated: 2020-03-18
Packaged: 2021-01-04 11:35:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 16,704
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21197009
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rennll/pseuds/Rennll
Summary: – It seems we have a situation here, Aqua spoke first, her keyblade raised and ready to engage.– We helped you out of the Realm of Darkness. How come you’re back? Sora exclaimed next.Twisting his face into a sneer, Vanitas stepped towards the fourth youth.– I don’t know why you smell like the old man, but you and I should put that woman to rest before she decides to start wailing on us, he told him.Xehanort sighed.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [c0ralsky](https://archiveofourown.org/users/c0ralsky/gifts).

> Gift for c0ralsky, if c0ralsky is also called Willow. I have hopefully gifted this to the right person.

Aqua was the first to speak, poised on an outcrop of sand colored with the effortless grace of a tightrope dancer, above an abyss that would make most tightrope dancers weak in their knees.  
– We have a situation here it seems, she said, speaking with a low voice, gravely from underuse.  
Her keyblade was raised, ready to engage the two strangers that had appeared before her, and more so the person who she knew from beforehand.  
– Aqua, what are you doing here? Sora exclaimed next. We helped you out of the Realm of Darkness. How come you’re back?  
As Aqua herself felt certain she had never met Sora before, she wrinkled her brow.  
– ... You were with the others when I left. Did something happen up in the Realm of Light, or ... Sora continued and would have gestured widely if the ledge he balanced on had been wider than his shoes. His eyes, pieces of sky plucked down and placed in a face that had seen plenty of sun, looked as brittle as the rainclouds that covered that same sky on occasion.  
The word Realm of Light sounded as exotic to Aqua as the concept of sun and rain. Looking at the boy she held no doubt that he had been there until recently and noted what was unmistakable a keyblade in his hand.  
It did not escape her either that his appearance was, apart from a drastic difference in color, unnervingly identical to that of Vanitas, the enemy who faced her from across the oblong platform of rock, up to each bushy spike of hair poking from their heads, as if one was a sepia photograph of another. A part of her mind latched on to the fact that Vanitas had not ever had the unnatural pale complexion which he sported now, though even if his hair was dusty gray instead of black and the contour of his skin foggy with paleness, she could never mistake his glinting yellow eyes.  
He spoke now, turned to Sora with a jeer on his face.  
– Pipe down. You’re not about to about to scream and cry are you? Is it light-boy’s fault you turned out this mewling pathetic?  
Aqua gave Vanitas the acid glare which she’d melded into perfection.  
– You are the one who should stop talking. I thought Ventus and I had finished you off for good.  
Twisting his face into a sneer alike that of a cougar, Vanitas stepped towards the fourth youth who observed their interactions from the very edge of the platform, showing clear determination to stand as far away from the rest of them as possible.  
– I don’t know why you smell like the old man, but you and I should put that woman to rest before she decides to start wailing on us, Vanitas urged, latching on to the fact that since this tall and white-haired boy had the same eyecolour as him, a shade that came out of high-exposure to darkness, they were likely on the same side.  
In response to this, Xehanort sighed, having processed two separate trails of thoughts at once: The first concluding that, despite never having seen his face before, the Sora-clone dressed in a black and white suit of overlapping scales who spoke with an unmistakable rasping voice, couldn’t be anyone other than Vanitas. (Out of all comrades to be reunited with, it just had to be Vanitas.) The second quickly worked out that there was disparity regarding the memories of the people present.  
– I’m sure some timeparadox could explain how we all meet like this. Except in regards to you:  
He turned towards Sora.  
– When were you ever trapped in the Realm of Darkness for any significant amount of time? How did you get here?  
– I don’t know, Sora exclaimed, at the same time that Aqua said:  
– Did you say Sora? and Vanitas cried out a:  
– Don’t you ignore me, after which the ground got a chime-in, rumbling and reminding all of them that before running into each other they had been traversing a landscape that was crumbling underneath their feet.  
The rock spire shook, pebbles rattling down its sides and into the foggy depths, then came a thunder-like crack as the entire structure broke down the middle and toppled.  
Sora and Vanitas leaped straight into the air, seeming to share the same reflexes as well as faces; as the ground tilted in a steep angle, Xehanort’s arms shot outward in an instinctive reaction to keep balance, then was no longer standing on the platform; and Aqua, who felt the stone give way beneath her heel but did not bother to acknowledge it by looking down, ran onto the falling stone, then further onto one of the arches that extended from the sides of the spire, stretching over the abyss to the next misshapenly shaped rock-pillar in line.  
On some logical plane the composition of the landscape made sense, if you’re faced with a ocean wide chasm populated only with spires that stretches far upward from the bottom like the cacti in a dessert, footpaths to traverse between them becomes a practical necessity. The incredible part was imagining that anyone had been able to construct them, for miles upon miles - these arches, each perfectly balanced, even when the pillars they bridged stood at different heights and shapes - more so imagining that nature had done it.  
For countless stonecutters the work would have taken lifetimes, and if someone had used magic, it must have required powers and effort that was hard for even a well-read and experienced magician like Aqua to wrap her head around. No matter what the identity of the creator had been, in the end the place and it’s wonder had sunken into the mire, where only the soulless heartless and the occasional lost vagabond would know it existed, all the while it corroded away bit by bit like all things in the realm had a habit of doing.  
Having jumped as high as he mustered — high enough to bring him to the top of a sizeable tree — Sora spread his limbs wide and began drifting down like a leaf falling from said tree. Looking around he spotted Aqua running across the archway, though neither Vanitas or Xehanort were to be found.  
Aqua kept him in her sights as well, tilting her head in his direction, then her eyes widened and she snapped her face towards him fully, shouting a warning.  
Catching the word “above” Sora looked up in time to deflect a pair of grizzly claws, attached to a long limb with skin that strained to cover the skeleton; beyond that a humanoid body with the characteristic heart-shaped emblem on the chest and bat-wings sticking out of the back, and a not-so-human-looking head, goat-shaped with glowing, yellow eyes bulging out of it like on a fly. The emblem heartless retracted it’s hand with a hiss, showing of a pair of curved fangs that looked custom-made to pierce through peoples’ necks. Behind it the air was rife with flailing and flapping from other smaller purebloods, like pitch black teardrops littering the void that Sora did not quite want to call a sky.  
Did the keyblade draw them here? went Sora’s first thought, not a hard question to guess the answer to: The first thing he’d ever been told about the keyblade was that it attracted heartless.  
There’s a million of them, went his second.  
A projectile whirled past his ear, striking the emblem as it reared for a second strike, encasing it in a block of ice that fell down into the-space-that-Sora-rather-not-think-about-while-floating-above-it. Looking in the direction where the spell had come from he saw Aqua wave at him to follow, before dismissing her keyblade and shooting off in great leaps.  
Did she tell him to not bother fighting the heartless and run away instead? The thought felt weird, but Sora reckoned that there wouldn’t be many people here that the heartless could hurt if he didn’t get rid of them. Except Xehanort and Vanitas, though those two could hold their own.  
To keep the drops away - the technical term was “Bit Sniper” he sort of remembered - Sora conjured fire at Kingdom Key’s tip and sent it careening into the closest cluster. It exploded in a ball of scarlet flares, a rainbow of colour edging the tip of each flame. Next he pointed the keyblade towards one of the archways. Time seemed to slow down as he focused on that spot and felt a tingling sensation rush from the keyblade and into his body. Enveloped in coursing indigo magic, he shot towards the archway, painting a trail of sparks behind himself. Flipping around a few feet above ground, he landed on his feet and sprinted after Aqua.  
They kept running even after the heartless were lost from sight, zigzagging across the archways if they did not simply jump across the gap between them. Occasionally a tremor would have the spires quake, the slimmer ones looking awfully tempted to imitate their crumbled cousin further back, though as time went by these vibrations died down, becoming a grouchy rumble in the distance. Sora dared to stop and catch his breath.  
The stone making up the arch which he stood on changed in the middle he noticed, one half made out of brown-striped material that was the same kind of stone as was making up the spire it connected to, while the other abruptly turned a glassy black, identical to the taller spire on the opposite side. It hadn’t occurred to him until he saw this extreme example: all of the arches looked as if they had grown out of the spires themselves and melded together in the center.  
– Aqua! he called  
When she turned around in the middle of jumping over an especially jagged granite pillar, he pointed at the black spire.  
– ... Let’s meet over there!  
After some brief hesitation she nodded and changed the trajectory on her next jump so that she flew towards the spire. Grinning, Sora decided to see if he could beat her to it and started sprinting. Races had never been his best branch of athletics though, not if there wasn’t an obstacle course involved, and without being aware that it had evolved into a competition Aqua reached the goal far ahead of Sora, not that his defeat got him feeling downtrodden.  
More embarrassing was the fact that it hadn’t occurred to him that the blank and smooth spire might not be the easiest to stand on. The stone was downright slippery. Before he could excuse the poor choice and suggest they move, Aqua had found a vein in the spire where crystals of a smoky pink color jutted outward like the hardened sap from a wounded tree, only spikier. Some of them were large as regular world benches and less glassy than the surrounding stone, which was how both of them ended up sitting on one, reminding Sora of how he’d used to lounge on the ground hugging palms and watch the sunsets back home together with Riku and Kairi.  
Their legs dangled freely over the abyss that Sora, now that he sat on relatively solid ground, tried to imagine how deep it could be. If he dropped a fire spell from where he sat, would it hit a bottom or flicker out long before it had the chance?  
– So … he began, gesturing to Aqua in an invitation for her to initiate the conversation.  
When only a curious gaze from her indicated that she did not know what kind of conversation he expected her to initiate, he hummed as he began pondering about that himself.  
– ... Do you know how you got here, or maybe you remember hazily like me …  
– What do you remember, Sora?  
Aqua craned her head forward as she asked, giving off an adult-talking-to-young-child vibe. This did not bother Sora as it would have somebody like Riku. In a fuzzy-feeling-in-the-chest way, it reminded him of how his mom would ask him stuff whenever he returned home after a day of adventuring as a young kid. (How was she doing? His mom, his dad, Riku, Kairi and all the others. Were they thinking he had disappeared for good?)  
Aqua was more older-sister age though, thus Sora decided not to mention the comparison.  
– After the battle … he hummed, leaning his head back, subconsciously expecting to feel a breeze brush his hair since they were sitting high up, but the realm of darkness was missing wind like it missed a passing day or a sense of moving time in general. - … I went away to look for Kairi and ended up in that pristine ocean-world. She made it back, I think. ... No.  
A warm expression lighted his face as Sora moved a hand to his heart and breathed out deeply. Aqua tilted her head at the mention of Kairi's name, but kept silent.  
– … I know that she made it. Kairi’s safe. After that, something or other happened and next thing I knew ...  
He gestured outward to the realm that surrounded them, then jumped onto his feet, the hand over his heart curling into a fist as he stared far into the dusky horizon.  
– ... I suppose knowing why we ended up here isn’t as important as what we should do now, like finding our way out.  
– You sound optimistic about our chances, Aqua said, her voice far quieter than his.  
Sora bit his lip.  
– That’s right, you know better than anyone how hard that is, he said, tone apologetic, still a smile wouldn’t entirely leave his lips and he extended a hand towards her.  
– This time around though, you can go through the harsh stuff together with someone. Keeping our spirits up is doubly important here. If Donald and Goofy were with me they would remind me to keep smiling like they always did during our adventures. “We won’t get anywhere if you don’t smile some”, they would say.  
– Donald and Goofy, Aqua said slowly, then a small warmth of a smile appeared on her lips.  
– ... Those two I remember.  
She reached forward, closing her slender fingers around Sora’s wrist and following him in getting to her feet.  
Now that Sora had worked up morale, he found himself looking around, sorely missing a convenient road sign that could point the in the right direction.  
– ... How is that other boy who was with you, Riku? Aqua said just as he opened his mouth to ask her if she also had a good feeling about heading right.  
– We don’t have to worry about him, Sora said, perking up as if the mentioning of Riku was a revitalization spell. He can take care of himself and everyone else outside of that. In the off chance that he would get out of line, Kairi and the king would be there to set him straight.  
– Good to hear.  
Aqua pointed left.  
– In that direction I saw expanses of solid ground. It would be good to get away from these unstable constructs, don’t you think?  
A sheepish chuckle came out of Sora.  
– Yeah, let’s… Wait …  
What had begun as a cheerful declaration shrink into hesitation and a frown.  
– ... The others, are we going to leave them behind then?   
– Are you concerned about the likes of Vanitas?  
Now Sora became sure that there was something different about Aqua’s eyes. A sharper edge to them that cut like shattered splinters of glass when she stared at him. His gaze fled to the ground without him meaning to.  
– I get that Vanitas caused you and your friends a lot of grief, and that neither of them are our friends, but …  
It occurred to Sora that he did not have a compelling argument as to why it tugged in his chest at the thought of walking away and forget that he had seen the others, who perhaps were lost as well.  
He thought about what Vanitas and, especially, Xehanort had done; the people hurt because of them. If the battle against the thirteen Seekers of Darkness had fared worse, all of his friends could have ended up dead. Such thoughts usually dug a hissing pit of anger in his stomach, prompting him to hit any obstacles in his way with more force.  
Still, it was strange, when he had stood face to face with them again, after being sure that their last encounter would be the last, that emotion hadn’t surfaced, leaving him with what felt like a chest full of damp ash. Trying to scold himself and keep in mind the hard truths, felt like grabbing a cluster of leaves that the wind caught and whirled away. His mind refused and instead trailed back to the moment Ventus and he tried to reason with Vanitas in the Keyblade Graveyard, or when Donald, Goofy and he had defeated Xehanort as an old man; the words he had said as he kneeled on the ground, about the pure world he wanted to create. A new start for everyone.  
He looked Aqua straight in the eye.  
– ... It feels wrong to leave them behind.

It didn’t just feel wrong, all of it was wrong in every sense of the word, Xehanort reflected half a mile away from the spot where Aqua and Sora were talking.  
He had found trees, growing on top of what was more plateau than spire, a square that seemed as if it had been cut from a forest and planted in the middle of the void. The trees: birches with silvery grey bark, sent their roots through the seemingly compact rock, either having found cracks or made their own, and interwove their knobly branches into a murky net. Without his yellow eyes that the darkness graciously gave way to, he would have stumbled around blind. The area was less than a mile across, yet standing in the middle of it Xehanort felt as if it would stretch on for hours.  
Reaching over his head to the low hanging branches of a younger and smaller three, he swept his fingers through the leaves, and with a hiss, violet sparks whirled into the air like a flock of fireflies, the darkness having settled on the tree like dust. They blinked out of existence one after the other while the branch swayed before settling back into a state of stationary stillness.  
Things of beauty, something that would bring most people shock to find in the Realm of Darkness. Thinking back to the first time he saw the realm himself, Xehanort had reflected that it was like any other piece of existence, with both bad sides and good. If you ignored the locals the realm was remarkably serene.  
That he had a previous experience to compare with made Xehanort surer on his hunch that something was wrong, a heaviness lingering in the atmosphere that shouldn’t be there.  
Like how he shouldn’t be there.  
The lack of undergrowth wasn’t truly what made the forest weird, or rather feel unreal even as fir needles snuck their way into his boots, as if he experienced it from the other side of a glass panel. After a bit of strolling Xehanort concluded that this could be a cause of several factors or a combination of them, like how the smell of the moss and bark wasn’t as apparent as it should be, - the Realm of Darkness was overall lacking in scent he found, though he knew that the people with the ability to smell darkness itself would disagree with him on that assumption, - or the desolateness. No bugs crawled between the roots and within the cracks of the tree trunks; no birds flew through foliage or hammered seeds against the branches. Peering up through the few openings in the leaves he saw no stars wandering across the dark, and there would never come a sun either. These plants could have been standing here for years, where any forest should have withered, though while the realm preserved it there could be no photosynthesis that would make the trees grow, nor any water evaporating from the leaves, - the temperature was even wherever he walked. Did air exist here at all, or was he breathing in the misguided belief that he still needed…  
There was a face over there. Turning his head in the right direction by chance, Xehanort caught a person staring at him from within the shadows. Sora.  
A dagger, a construct out of glowing blue magic as sharp as glass, flared into existence in Xehanort’s hand and flew towards the figure less than a second later. A rasping outcry was heard as Sora ducked behind a trunk to avoid the projectile that was homing in on him, and it couldn’t be Sora, because never would that bright-hearted boy be so tainted by darkness that the air curled around him like spoiled milk.  
– Vanitas, Xehanort commented with a cool voice.  
– Yeah, came an irritable huff from behind the trunk.  
A face, paper-pale, peeked out from behind his cover. The eyes that glistened in the gloom narrowed like on a suspicious cat.  
– You know me? Vanitas said.  
– We were colleagues of a kind, Xehanort replied, then thought that with the nonsensical way that time functioned in this realm this might as well be Vanitas from before being recruited to the organisation.  
Not that Vanitas wouldn’t know anything about him either way. If this was Vanitas post-time-travel his memories of the experience would have been erased, although Xehanort knew that this should have been the case with him also, yet here he stood, remembering everything from the moment he met Ansem, all until his vessel was broken by Sora bashing a rudder into his back, - the bastard -.  
In any case, throwing a dagger at a person was not a good way to make first impressions.  
Raising his arms above his head to show that he did not plan on hurling any more magic, Xehanort walked towards Vanitas like he would a dog that might either bolt or attack him. Hammering in the hound-comparison, Vanitas emerged from the tree and neared Xehanort while sniffing audibly in his direction.  
– So what? he said. Did Xehanort give up on Terra and choose an even younger guy as his new body?  
– I’m Xehanort yes, Xehanort said while stepping backwards, as Vanitas was now coming too close for his comfort.  
– ... Technically I’m his younger self who travelled here from the past.  
Freezing up, Vanitas directed a disbelieving look towards Xehanort.  
– Time travel?  
– Yes.  
– When was that ever on the agenda?  
Vanitas reached with gloved hands towards Xehanort’s face. Correctly assuming that he was about to grab his cheeks to see if their softness wasn’t an optical illusion with the old man wrinkles hidden beneath, Xehanort smacked his hands away and cleared his throat.  
– The Xehanort you knew hadn’t planned to do any time traveling back then. That idea manifested some years after he'd possessed Terra, in tandem with devising a method to artificially reclaim lost memories. He found out that he, or rather I, once met a version of myself from the future, who granted me the powers of time travel, thus allowing me to gather thirteen vessels that could house a splinter of the older - to you familiar - Xehanort’s heart and become the thirteen pieces of darkness from prophecy that would face seven pieces of light and recreate the keyblade war. Upon understanding this, the Xehanort who’d reclaimed his memories cut out his heart, creating a nobody and a heartless which was then sent…  
– …Hang on, hang on, Vanitas called out, gripping onto Xehanort’s shoulders and shaking him. He stared up into his face.  
– ... What? he exclaimed.  
– ... Artificial memory reclaiming? Heartless and nobodies? I thought you just wanted to make a key.  
Frowning, Xehanort stepped away and brushed off his coat.  
– All of it is perfectly comprehensible once you understand the mechanics behind everything, he said.  
– Can definitely see the old man in you.  
While Xehanort wanted to ask what Vanitas meant by that, he had other questions that was prickling his mind.  
– If it’s my turn to ask something, why do you look like Sora?  
The confused wrinkle that appeared on Vanitas forehead disappeared in a matter of moments.  
– Sora’s what you called that guy we ran into before, yeah? Here’s the thing, after the old … you split me out of Ventus’ heart, - Do you know who Ventus is?  
A nod from Xehanort had him carry along.  
– ... Anyway, as Ventus was dying as a result of this, that guy Sora did him a solid and gave him a piece of his own heart to fill in the cracks. A part of him sits where I belong, and I reflect his appearance because of this. That was the old you’s theory anyway. Since Sora’s supposed to be a decade younger than me I haven’t been able to confirm this before. There was no denying who he was when we stood face to face though.  
– Makes as much sense as any other explanation, Xehanort said, having listened with a thoughtful expression.  
– When your own situation is a convoluted mess of time travelling, I guess you would say that to everything.  
Xehanort choose to pick his battles with a sigh.  
– This is the first time I’ve seen you walk around without a helmet, that’s why I didn’t know that the two of you looked like each other, he said.  
– Not even I can see through a visor in the middle of the Realm of Darkness, Vanitas replied.  
He was shifting his weight from side to side as he talked, which was how Xehanort noticed the object strapped to his back through what looked like a self-made satchel out of twined together rags, a common sword without any magical qualities that he could sense. The fact that Vanitas bothered to carry around a weapon inferior to the keyblade he could conjure forth with a thought did not surprise him. If every instance they summoned the keyblade would attract heartless like iron dust to a magnet, it seemed sensible to use a normal weapon in dealing with smaller threats. The bigger shock was that Vanitas had the forethought and motivation to figure out a solution to a problem he could technically resolve by beating it into submission.  
– Was diving down here part of your master plan?  
Leaning forward as he asked, Vanitas tone revealed that he wasn’t hoping too much, but if he could be allowed to house unrealistic expectations of anyone, Xehanort would be that person. Which was why his shoulder slumped ever so slightly when the other shook his head.  
– As far as I know, when my role in this time had played out I should have returned to my present at the Destiny Islands.  
– You made a miscalculation then?  
Because he couldn’t deny this, Xehanort let hear a brief hum of agreement.  
A far off noise cut off any further conversation. Explosions and a following rumble, muffled by distance. It sounded unmistakably like fireworks. Even when you had fallen into the Realm of Darkness only recently, like Xehanort, fireworks did not seem like something that would happen very often.  
Vanitas moved first, easing into the shadows. Even though Xehanort would have expected his white suit to be easily tracked, the other vanished like dissipating mist. Was it a lucky fluke that he had spotted Vanitas in the first place?  
After a bit of internal deliberation about whether he wanted to follow Vanitas or head in the opposite direction, Xehanort came to the conclusion that, previous experiences aside, Vanitas hadn’t been annoying enough to varant this yet, and headed for the noise.  
On the cliff that marked the edge of the woods and the gaping abyss stretching outwards, he caught up to Vanitas, his face bathing in flashes of red, green and golden as the horizon was indeed sparkling with fireworks, whistling into the sky as slim projectiles, then crackling as they erupted into rose bushes of embers.  
– This has to be the other two, Vanitas said as Xehanort stepped up to his side.  
– As long as there hasn’t been born a new breed of heartless that likes to telegraph its position to everything within miles, Xehanort agreed.  
– Do you think they are trying to tell us where they are?  
With Vanitas focused on the fireworks, Xehanort had the freedom to secretly roll his eyes, because why else would they put on such a display.  
Mapping out what looked to be the most direct route, Xehanort stepped forward. Vanitas grabbed his shoulder and pulled him back.  
– No deliberation. You are going over there instantly when it could be a trap, he exclaimed.  
– I never ordered you to tag along like a twig stuck beneath my boot, Xehanort replied, shaking off other’s grip.  
The scarlet glow from afar framed the angry spark in Vanitas eyes, their otherworldly glow apparent and seeming like they would be burning to the touch.  
– Aren’t you supposed to have the old-man’s smarts? This is a place where the grass sometimes tries to kill you. Being two blades instead of one makes all the difference, but that doesn’t mean I’m gonna tag along on any idiotic decisions.  
– How is it idiotic? If two blades are better than one, shouldn’t the possibility of four seem ideal?  
– Not when one of those swords is aimed to kill me.  
The heart of the matter. Xehanort recalled that apart from Ventus, the guardian of light that Vanitas shared the most animosity with was Aqua. He could mock Vanitas and question his scaredy cat antics, but that wasn’t how you got along with him. While he easily forgot that Vanitas possessed any sensibility, his the-more-the-merrier logic was sound considering how minimal the chances of meeting more people were, as well as his wariness.  
– The eventuality of them trying to lure us into an ambush hasn’t gone over my head, he said, speaking slowly, but not slow to the point where it would be berating.  
– ... I doubt this is the case for several reasons. While not very familiar with Aqua, I know what Sora is predisposed to do. Using decit for the sole purpose of harming someone is not something I would expect from the just keyblade champion. Since they are allies I figured the same applied to Aqua. Even with the possibility of being wrong, I despise backing away from opportunity because of the risks involved.  
– What opportunity? Do you want to make friends with those people or something?  
Xehanort shrugged. The possibility had lingered in the back of his mind, but when Vanitas said it outloud it did sound ridiculous.  
– Being able to bargain with them shouldn’t be out of the water. We could share information and at least find out what they want.  
While the dangerous glow in his eyes had settled, there was apprehension in the way that Vanitas held his body.  
– If you don’t want to approach them, you could keep yourself hidden and let me do the talking, Xehanort suggested, thinking that keeping Vanitas away from negotiations would do more good than bad anyway.  
This succeeded in making Vanitas perk.  
– I can get behind that, let you be the one to check the waters, he said and smirked. If someone’s gonna receive a keyblade to the gut I rather it be you than me.  
The gums that gleamed when Vanitas drew his lips back had the same palish gray color as his lips.  
The last bit of firework hissed and flickered away, signaling that the time was nigh if they were serious about locating Aqua and Sora. Turning around Xehanort leaped outward. The feeling of the air being heavier than it should did not impact his jumping. Behind him Vanitas crouched down and pushed off the ledge as well, following him like a white spectre sailing through the dusk.

From the top of the tallest granite tower that they had been able to find, Sora crouched and looked down at the spot where Aqua and him had been sending fireworks into the sky minutes earlier, gawking with grotesque fascination at the writhing congelic mass of heartless that had gathered. It reminded him of how sea slugs would converge around an opened clam until it had been cleansed of meat.  
– You were right about it being a good idea to move after we performed those spells, he said to Aqua who was watching behind him with more casual interest.  
Every so often both of them would draw their gaze away from the heartless and trail it around the surrounding area in the search of a couple of human figures. In the murky lighting exerting their eyes made them tear up; most of the time it would be Sora brushing his arm against his face and frowning. His shoulders tensed every time the black horde seemed to move more erratically, waiting for a sign that the heartless had discovered Xehanort and Vanitas before they had and would surge towards them.  
– ... What happens if we cannot find each other? I mean, they won’t be able to tell where we are.  
– That depends, Aqua said, giving him the same kind of short, unsatisfying answer that Sora’s cool friends liked to utilize, Cloud coming to mind as an obvious offender.  
– Depends on what?  
– On how good they are at drawing logical conclusions.  
Sora did not reply, because in the second he would have Xehanort was standing behind Aqua’s back, like a spectre summoned by them talking about him. Sora jumped to his feet and Aqua swept around, not summoning her keyblade but holding out her hand to show that she could. Xehanort raised his arms above his head for a meaning-no-harm-conveying second, then let them flop down to his sides.  
– Here I thought that you invited me here to talk, he said, sending their combat-readiness a dirty look.  
– How did you find us? Sora exclaimed.  
Xehanort wrinkled his brow.  
– This spire was the best vantage-point within miles. You didn’t think I would figure that out?  
His eyebrows shot upward as he made an open show about pondering if Sora perhaps wasn’t smart enough that this conclusion came naturally to him.  
Sora breathed in long through his nose, something Goofy told Donald to do whenever the duck was having a sourer-than-usual temper-tantrum.  
– Where is the other boy who went after you? Aqua asked.  
A brief exchange where calculating cat-yellow eyes met blue that were cold and obscured as a glacier, then Xehanort shrugged.  
– Can’t say, we went our separate ways. Was I not the one you hoped for?  
– It’s good that we can talk with either one of you, Sora cut in, afraid that Xehanort would at any slight vanish like a candle-flame you blew too hard at, although he was suspecting that half the words out of Xehanort’s mouth were simple taunts.  
– Aqua and I don’t know why we have ended up here. I wanted to ask if you had any idea, he said while concentrating on the task of keeping any grudge from entering his voice, make it all impartial and down-to-business.  
An eyebrow, like a faint trail of flour, rose skyward on Xehanort’s brown forehead.  
– You think it wise to admit that you’re lost and clueless, or assume that I would want to share anything about my own situation, he said.  
That was it, Sora knew he needed ten years of meditative training before being ready to keep a level head while conversing with this guy.  
A smirk danced on Xehanort’s lips when he saw Sora bristle, just like the one he had worn when he’d taunted the cowboy Woody in the Toybox after separating him from his friends.  
– If you want incentive ... Aqua cut in.  
Xehanort and Sora had been so focused on each other that the former snapped his head towards her as she reminded him of her presence.  
– ... While Sora is convinced that all of us are in the same boat, my worry is that you two people, tainted by darkness, came here on purpose, she said. If you don’t answer, I will assume that you have nefarious intentions.  
Her Defender keyblade appeared in hand and pointed towards Xehanort, black metal gleaming as dangerously as her eyes.  
– ... In that case, it will be my duty to stop you, she finished.  
– Not going to take any chances on me, I see, Xehanort murmured, glancing between the bared keyblade and the heartless swarming not far away, then giving a sigh of surrender.  
– ... Fine, put that thing away before you invite disaster over us.  
The weapon disappeared.  
Crossing his arms with a look that spoke of how unamusing he found being threatened was:  
– ... The answer to your question, Sora, is no, I never planned on ending up here. The reason as to why the four of us have encountered each other in this of all realms eludes me.  
– Is that really true? Sora exclaimed.  
When Xehanort frowned in an annoyed manner at him, he elaborated gestures accompanying every word.  
– ... Last time we spoke you seemed to be eluding that something like this would happen to me. You said it like …  
Wrinkling his forehead as he concentrated on trying to morph his tone into something vaguely similar to Xehanort’s voice of monotone velvet:  
… “Goodbye Sora. Your time IN THIS WORLD IS…” — Then you poofed.  
The frown on Xehanort’s face deepened, and his fingers flexed with the immediate desire to claw at the source of that awful mimicry. A glance at Aqua, keeping her arm extended, convinced him that following those impulses would be more trouble than it was worth. Tilting his head with closed eyes, he urged back to mind what that particular ominous warning had been about.  
– When I said that to you, plunging into this realm wasn’t exactly the fate I had imagined would befall you, he admitted. With how you abused the Power of Waking I surmised that you would be lost one way or another. Honestly, you should consider yourself lucky that you didn’t get more lost than this.  
Her eyes widened when Aqua heard mentioned the perilous ability of the keyblade masters, and she looked at Sora like she saw him for the first time.  
– ... As I told you goodbye. I did mean goodbye and would have preferred it had it been permanent, Xehanort finished.  
– Would you like to come with us? Sora said.  
It seemed that such a question could make even Xehanort gape in surprise. Out of nowhere it may be — Sora figured that they could argue with themselves and each other back and forth, but in the end he knew what his heart wanted it to come down to. Better not beat around the bush, especially since Xehanort would likely do plenty of bushing on his own.  
– Last time I saw you, we were trying to slaughter each other, he said.  
– That doesn’t mean I want you to be left alone in the darkness if I can help it.  
Exchanges of information had been within Xehanort’s calculations, a non-aggression pact had seemed the best he could hope for; he had not expected Sora’s hero-complex to extend to him. A chuckle traipsed on his lips.  
Sora tilted his head, as uncertain of Xehanort’s amusement as a dog with an owner who would either feed it or kick it when in a jolly mood.  
– What? he asked.  
– You talked very differently before, didn’t you? Xehanort replied, smirking. When we met in the black city, I recall warning you and getting taunted for it. “What, _worried_ about _me_ now?” was what you said.  
– That wasn’t taunting, slipped out of Sora.  
Sure, he had bit back whenever Xehanort appeared to deliver cryptic comments, but it had not been as mocking as Xehanort made it sound. (He did a terrible impression.) With how often mean-spirited comments dripped out from his own tongue, it hardly seemed fair that Xehanort would act like someone else should be ashamed of their words. Even if he had felt hurt by the comment, how else had he expected to be replied to? When a person switched between kidnapping you from inside your dreams to pretending he was all helpful, anyone would be skeptical.  
Breathe in, Sora reminded himself. If he committed to picking apart all of Xehanort’s hypocrisies they would be at it all the non-existent day.  
– ... Never mind, he grumbled, stepped forward and held out his hand.  
– ... We were opponents once, but now we share a problem that needs solving. You would like to find your way out of here too, right? Wouldn’t it be easier if we worked together?  
When Xehanort stared at his hand as if ugly insects were crawling over it, Sora became convinced that he had been too hopeful.  
– Would this agreement extend to … Xehanort said while glancing towards Aqua, ... that “other boy” you were talking about?  
– Vanitas.  
Aqua wrinkled her nose in distaste as she uttered the name.  
– The thought of tolerating his presence offends me to my core, she said with such harshness that Sora glanced at her apprehensively while Xehanort narrowed his gaze.  
In the next moment her anger settled like that of an aged hound which growled but lacked the energy to rise to it’s paws.  
– ... I think Sora is right though. None of us needs more enemies here. Vanitas hurt my friend, but killing him out of spite won’t change anything. In the end he was serving a greater evil.  
– Do you want me to apologize on his behalf? Xehanort commented dryly.  
Aqua gave him a puzzled look. Meanwhile Sora’s arm began aching from having been extended too long and he took a step forward as a reminder that his offer still stood.  
– If we encounter Vanitas he’s free to join us as well, he said. You both will need to commit to getting along though. All of us can work on our attitude towards each other.  
There was no indication whether Xehanort would accept the gesture or turn away, that was why Sora’s shoulders sagged in relief when the other extended a gloved hand and grasped his, cool leather settling against calloused skin.  
– Very well, I look forward to cooperating with you Sora, Xehanort said.  
It sounded like a threat.  
The phrase “I can’t believe I just made a pact with Xehanort” rushed through Sora’s head as both a sense of exhilarating accomplishment and the dawning of a horrible realisation. Hadn’t people told him that he would have to start listening to his heart a little less and his reason a little more?  
Pushing that mounting bit of what-have-I-done aside, because at this point he could do no take-backs, Sora locked eyes with the other and smiled his most disarming.  
– The same here, Xehanort.  
If Aqua until this moment had hovered on the edge of realisation regarding the familiar chill she got from seeing the taller boy’s eyes, the jeering implications behind his words and the aversion to his presence that made her want to pull away as if he was stricken by plague, the mention of Xehanort’s name was the wire that connected everything and paralyzed her.  
– What name did you call him, Sora? she whispered.  
Sora blinked at her confused, though Xehanort, understanding what was about to happen, pulled his hand away and stepped back, lean body tensing with the soft anticipation of a panther staring down another great cat.  
– You didn’t know, Sora gawked after an initial, fleeting moment of disbelief.  
– I suppose that explains why you assumed I knew nothing of the fate of poor Ventus, Xehanort said.  
– Freeze!  
The spell was mouthed like a roar, accompanied by wisps of black and purple as Defender appeared and swung towards Xehanort who jumped away, but couldn’t retreat from the blazetrail of jagged ice, materializing in a straight line from where Aqua swept her blade. Any other person wouldn’t have had the time to avoid it, though Xehanort and time had an understanding.  
There was the sensation of time magic, like an invisible fist boxing the air and making it wobble like a plate of alloy, as Xehanort disappeared and reappeared atop of a neighboring spire. With a growl, Aqua dug her heels into the ground and shoot towards him in a trail of purple sparks, Sora stumbling out of her path in order to not be cleaved in half.  
– Wait! he shouted after her, at which point she was bringing her blade down towards Xehanort’s head.  
Electric blue magic flowed out of his hands as he dodged to the side, its glow matching the frenzied fire that was shining from Aqua’s eyes, and taking the form of a short sword in each hand. He counter attacked in an assault that had afterimages appear like ghosts around him, and stabbed towards Aqua’s gut.  
A flash of hexagon shaped images signified a teleportation spell that brought her away in the last moment. Reappearing in the air above, standing where any non-magic user would insist there was nothing to stand on, she lifted Defender over her head, the magic around the blade swirling and snapping before solidifying into miniature stars of ice that she hurled like a rain of comets towards Xehanort. Time flickered again, and Xehanort was further down, leaping between the monoliths.  
Having nothing to win out of the battle, he might have opted to escape if Aqua had let him. She appeared before him at each turn, sparks outlining where she had last been every time she shifted from one place to another, then dancing out of the way of his viper-deadly retaliations that would have cut the throat of anyone else impudent enough to stand in his path.  
A gaping spectator, Sora was caught between watching and turning dizzy from the speed of the movements, and turning his eyes to the nearby flock of heartless, many heads jerking towards where Aqua’s keyblade sang out it’s power and clashes of spectral daggers and ice created eye-catching explosions of light. It begun moving like a flood across the arches, individual shadows climbing over and pushing each other down into the shapeless group as they scrambled forward.  
Perhaps warding off heartless would be better than fighting each other: despite this thought passing through his head, Sora summoned Kingdom Key. If he all the keychains in his collection hadn’t found it fit to disappear, he would have let the keyblade transmute into a pair of arrowguns and shot laser beams at the faraway targets. As things were he conjured a fire balls and watched it fly in the hopes that it would reach.  
He hadn’t needed to worry. The sphere exploded in the head of the pack, shattering the arch which they were traversing and causing a fair number to tumble down into the abyss. A fantastic strategy Sora realized and followed up the first flame with several others, aiming on the crumbling pathway and widening the gap which the heartless would need to leap across in order to reach where Aqua and Xehanort were playing catch-and-kill.  
The heartless he hadn’t managed to stop were bearing down upon the battlers, but had trouble catching up to them with how quickly they were bouncing back and forth. When Aqua noticed their presence she increased the range of the spells that she bombarded Xehanort with, evaporating many black creatures as a result, and in the middle of performing a series of slashes Aqua’s way, Xehanort could turn around towards the heartless appearing behind his back and slice through them as an afterthought.  
Since the heartless’ intervention wouldn’t be enough, Sora knew he had to be the one to drop down there and stop them. In the last second he hesitated, because what if he made it worse?  
Once as a kid he’d seen two dogs furiously ripping into each other. In trying to break up the fight he had pulled one of them back by the tail, which had given the other dog an opportunity to leap forward and bite it’s opponent across the face. If he distracted someone in this situation, what would keep the other from delivering a fatal blow?  
The moment he lingered, Xehanort lost his patience, having to dance between Aqua’s attacks, and dashed, blindingly fast, towards her, betting on overwhelming her with the sudden assault. Daggers slashed a cross towards her collarbones, and sunk into flesh, only for the person he attacked to evaporate into black smoke. Eyes widening, Xehanort whirled around in time to clumsily block a blow which Aqua, having appeared behind him the moment her mirage vanished, aimed towards his stomach. The force of the attack shattered his weapons and sent Xehanort hurling. When he recovered, he was already plunging towards the consuming precipice without any rock formation nearby that could save him.  
A furious cry erupted from him, followed by a snap as the blue magic in his hands lengthened into a new shape, a whip that stretched upward like an extension of his animosity, curling around one of Aqua’s ankles and retracting.  
Exclaiming in surprise, she twisted around as the whip pulled her down, hands reaching out to grab onto the edge of the platform she had stood on and her fingers scraping themselves bloody as the granite offered no assistance, giving way and cascading down with her as she fell.  
The second he understood what was happening, and that neither Aqua nor Xehanort had flying magic to help them, Sora lost the ability to breathe. While dropping down from his watchpoint and rushing towards where Aqua was scrambling, he still couldn’t recall inhaling, only thinking that it would be his fault for not acting quick enough to stop them, that it had been his fault from the beginning for assuming that Aqua knew who Xehanort was. When he fell to his knees on the spot where Aqua had stood, watching as the light from the whip was the last to be eclipsed his vision was flickering. Perhaps he would have passed out if Vanitas had not chosen the moment to appear, and appearing by jumping down on his back.  
Air rushed out of his him as his stomach was pressed flat to the rock. With half the process done, his brain recalled the other half of what lungs were supposed to do and sucked air back into his throat.  
Two determined hands pinned down his head and sword-arm, making it so that Sora was barely able to spot who was sitting crouched on top of him.  
– Vanitas, he wheezed.  
The other grinned in a way that made Sora unnerved to watch his own face.  
– Great, I won’t be needing introductions, Vanitas said. It looked like you almost got along with Xehanort for a moment there. Was it a ploy to get him to lower his guard? If so that backfired on you and the woman splendidly, didn’t it?  
– Get off me! Sora shouted while trying in vain to budge his arm.  
Since he still had his keyblade in hand, it struck him that he could try summoning lightning or fire, though from the moment he began learning magic Donald had made clear the danger of conjuring an attack-spell without launching it, and Goofy had supplemented with anecdotes about the accidents that had occurred during the duck-wizard’s apprentice-years that, while funny, had underlined the point since Sora knew that if something similar happened he wouldn’t have gotten out of it with only singed feathers and a three thumb long swelling on his head.  
It didn’t need to be an attack spell though. Recalling that Vanitas was made of pure darkness, Sora willed magic through his keyblade like whenever he planned to pull of one of his great attraction-spells. Instead of carrying out the enchantment all the way through, he focused on the part that made Kingdom Key light up like a sparkler, urging all of his energy into maximizing that particular effect. The result was a flash of light that made the Realm of Darkness look white for a moment, and if there was anything that Sora had learned about pure darkness people it was that they hated bright lights shining into their faces.  
Screaming, Vanitas covered his eyes. It gave Sora room to dig his elbows into the ground and buckle, forcing the other off.  
– Aren’t you taking this seriously? Sora shouted at the regaining-his-bearings Vanitas as he swept around with Kingdom Key pointing towards the other. My friend and yours too dropped down that gap, not a minute ago.  
For once, the privilege of having someone to get angry at made Sora thankful, it hindered the horror of the situation from fully sinking it’s claws into his mind.  
Straightening and giving Sora a displeased look - boy, did he find it hard to watch somebody with the same face make overly emotional expressions - Vanitas crossed his arms and tutted.  
– If you’re worried, why don’t you jump after them?  
– Is this a joke to you? Sora exclaimed, the grip around his keyblade turning his knuckles white.  
– You’re the one who doesn’t get how this place works. People don’t fall to their deaths here.  
– What?  
– Imagine the Realm of Darkness as an ocean. Sinking deeper doesn’t harm you, it only becomes a question of handling the pressure.  
– They’re alright?  
The light that had shone from Kingdom Key a minute ago could hardly compare to the way Sora’s features were brightening. Vanitas stared quizzically, unaware that his face was able to accomplish something like that.  
– With how they were going at it, I doubt they are “alright” but yeah.  
Eyes widening as he understood the urgency in catching up to Aqua and Xehanort, Sora turned on his heel, stepped up to the ledge and stared down.  
Vanitas found that the other had lost all interest in him, as well as the sword that he could potentially put in his back and huffed, somewhere between annoyed and amused.  
His shoulders tensing because he had already decided to leap, Sora moved to take that decisive step over the edge, then hesitated and sent a suspicious look back over his shoulder, turning and pointing down the cliff.  
– You first.  
Vanitas raised an eyebrow.  
– Why? he asked.  
– Xehanort is your friend right?  
Despite the determination in Sora’s gaze, uncertainty in the claim made his voice waver.  
– I wouldn’t call myself anyone’s friend.  
– Then how about you jump because there’s a pack of drooling heartless close by?  
Humming, Vanitas turned sideways to eye the horde of black creatures gathered on the other side of the convenient gap that Sora had made, the lot of them looking ready to spontaneously sprout wings if it would help get their paws on the two hearts positioned tantalizingly close, then with a shrug he walked up to where Sora stood. Showing as much hesitation as a falcon throwing itself out of it’s nest, he spread his arms and dived headlong from the spire.  
Breathing in deeply as he watched Vanitas disappear, Sora edged the corner of his shoes over the ledge. He breathed out slowly. Down in that blackness, he wasn’t certain that flying magic would work, still he conjured up the happy thoughts that he needed in order to float freely in the air: Playing on Destiny Islands’ beaches with Riku and Kairi; Kairi smiling at him.  
Sora took a step.


	2. Chapter 2

Sinking had been the right way to put it.  
There was nothing to see except blackness. Despite having dropped, felt the sensation of your stomach defying gravity’s pull and heard the air woosh by your ears, it’s as if pressure and sound ceased to exist when you could no longer see the precipice you had jumped from.  
While the Realm of Darkness never had much in terms of lighting, there had always been a wayward will-o-wisp, inexplicably glowing rock, or still-functioning street lamp that wove it’s embers together with a nearly imperceptible glow from the earth and dispelled the absolute darkness, making it permeable and even — dare you say it — sort of dusky.  
Falling through the chew marks in the amalgamation of half-digested landscapes that were applied to the realm like a face mask, you saw, in a purely figurative sense, the abyss for what it was: The act of being swallowed essentially, the only existing thing being the steady pull deeper. You would think that you would never see the end of the space that knew neither time nor distance. Eventually though, the darkness lessened, slowly but surely until you realised that it wasn’t imagination.  
A world.  
Sunken in darkness the ripped pieces of worlds glowed like mareel, tiny crumbs of the realm of light as they were, though you could only see this from afar, a phantasmal light that made the landscapes look like structures of mist. It could have been comforting, seeing the abyss give way to the irradiate land, though the light looked delicate and would, you understood, unavoidably be snuffed out.

Sora found himself descending upon a desert.  
To his understanding there existed two types of deserts. The first was the kind of sandy landscape that made itself out to be like an endless beach with rolling hills of cream colored sand, curving toward the horizon like giant sleepy snakes. When you saw them you wanted nothing more than rest your chin against the dunes. Maybe take a nap. He’d tried doing that when he visited Agrabah; the sand was more unkind and rough than it looked from a distance.  
The second type was less sand and more cracked dirt, unkind and rough looking from the start and unlike the duny deserts it didn’t give you false impressions.  
The desert he looked at now looked like a giant janitor had used a giant broom to push all the grains from the first type of desert into the second type, gathering the sand in steep piles. The dunes stretched upward like hills or even mountains, flat ground windling like red rivers between them.  
With gravity taking its time to renew its grip, he descended daintelly towards the top of one of these piles. The sand was flattening at the summit, creating a platform that stretched evenly in all directions before plummeting sharply downward past the edges.  
Half of this area was spotted with ice, frosty spikes jutting upward, designed to cut sharply into what came in their way. His feet were lucky that he did not land on top of them. A fair bit away Aqua and Xehanort were circling each other, moved with more deliberation in comparison to before – Loose sand quickly zapped your energy if you fought like an unhinged madman upon it.  
Xehanort had let his keyblade take proper form and had taught Aqua to not take it lightly, judging by a noticeable limp in her normally fluid strides. He would likely have looked smug about the damage if the left side of his face wasn’t swelling after what looked like a punch from a fist made out of solid rock.  
In the middle of a step his figure flickered, stood behind Aqua and brought his blade down across her back.  
– Stop! Sora cried out, sprinting toward them.  
The sand absorbed his velocity, making his steps unbearably slow.  
Either having avoided the damage or ignoring it, Aqua chartwheeled forward, one hand outstretched to hold up her body, and her other pointing the keyblade at Xehanort’s chest.  
– Freeze! she called in her upside down position.  
Xehanort’s blade moved reflexively to block the blast as it threw him backward.  
– Aqua! Sora called out, eyes widening in terror.  
She ignored him, sprinting toward the fallen Xehanort who pushed himself off the ground by one hand, the other frozen against his chest.  
– ... Watch out!  
To this she reacted, tilting her head back, then jumping out of the way of Vanitas who fell toward her from above, sword pointed at her neck. A sandpapery sound of disappointment came from him as the blade pierced sand. He side eyed Sora.  
– That was a golden opportunity to take her down.  
– You, Aqua spitted, her tone making Vanitas turn to her, since it sounded like she would throw her weapon into his back otherwise.  
Meanwhile Xehanort was using a dagger to hack into the ice impeding him and growling between clenched teeth. Coruscating splinters clattered down his coat as he stood up and conjured the whip in his non-frostbitten hand, snapping it.  
– I’ll trap her, then you’ll finish her off, he told Vanitas.  
– No you don’t, Sora shouted, finally able to throw himself between the would-be combattants.  
– … All of you need to calm down.  
A swirling radiance of sparks accompanied this declaration. He arched backwards at the sheer amount of starlight that was erupting. The other’s screeched to a halt in the middle of rushing each other, turning straight around in an attempt to escape the light that approached like a flood wave. To no avail. The magic caught all of them in glittering bubble, soon solidifying into seat sized teacups.  
Vanitas cried out in surprise as the vehicle pushed him off balance and he fell down on his back onto a seat of squishy leather cushions. A grappling hand shot out to cling to the wheel that pranced on a pole in the middle. Xehanort and Aqua were slung across their respective seats just as awkwardly, expressions painted with the shock that should be expected of anyone finding themselves spontaneously popped into a carnival ride.  
Usually the things that Sora wanted to stop would be outside the teacups while he and his friends spun them around, hitting enemies to their heart’s content. Since he didn’t want to cause any of these people harm, he had instead brought to mind a certain incident that happened when he wanted to see how fast he could possibly spin the cups before the spell ended. Donald had yet to forgive him for turning them and himself into whimpering, ill heaps for an hour afterwards.  
Here’s hoping none of them fly off, he thought before slashing his glowing keyblade downward, sending out a pulse of light. The teacups resonated with it and begun spinning around him. He slashed again, making them spin faster, and faster and faster …  
The magic that travelled through the keyblade and washed over his arms begun causing a burning sensation. Sora gritted his teeth to resist the temptation of letting the spell come undone, and beat down with more force to speed the attraction up until he could no longer see who sat in which cup. His stubbornness wouldn’t help when Kingdom Key ran out of magic though. He could see the blasts of starlight flashing in an increasingly uneven pace, flickering and sputtering. The moment he felt the magic coming undone, he allowed the cups to grind to a halt in a pace that would cause any fractures, then let the attraction vanish in a final puff of jangling sparkles.  
With heavy thuds the three ride goers fell down into the sand, tangled messes of limbs.  
– Sorry, I needed you all to stop, Sora said.  
...  
– ... Nobody has passed out right?  
A chorus of groaning responded to that. The others begun untangling themselves and attempting to sit up. Aqua shook her head from side to side, a daze hanging over her face, managed to prop herself up on one knee and sent a glare in Sora’s direction. Not far from her, Vanitas begun chuckling in the dejected manner of someone who struggled to comprehend what had happened a second ago. He lifted his body upward with the help of both hands then pushed, launching himself to his feet and fell down. Made a new attempt and fell down.  
Xehanort, the last one to sit upright, had buried his keyblade in the sand and leaned towards it like a man at the end of his life, his brown complexion turning bone white. The look he gave Sora made Aqua’s glare seem like one of gratitude in comparison. Sora swallowed:  
– Are you al…  
Everything apart from Xehanort froze. During the stopped minute when he was the only thing moving, Xehanort leaned forward with a whimper and a hand clasped over his mouth, crawled off to the side, dug a pit, disposed of the earthly content in his stomach, then resumed his previous position after having buried all evidence of his moment of weakness.  
– ...right? Sora asked Xehanort.  
He was looking like he would have the gall to try to assist him. Xehanort gathered all the searing hate he felt at this moment and sending it toward Sora in a narrowed look that would hopefully dispel any such notions, then forced himself to his feet, swaying like a palm in a storm but having asserted his independence.  
On his end, Vanitas managed at last to balance on his own two feet, arms propelling outward and mouth falling open with a lightheaded sound as he watched the world tilt sideways. Carefully he lifted a right foot and moved it forward, humming when it ended up behind him instead. Continuing his attempt at walking, his body tilted sharply to the left. Waving his limbs like a drunk hummingbird, he took quicker and quicker steps in an effort to keep himself from falling until he inevitably stumbled into a patch of ice, slipped and slammed into the ground with a yell.  
Aqua had not yet moved from her position, though a knife like sharpness in the eyes directed at Sora and Xehanort promised that she would at any moment get up and proceed resuming her duty of separating the latter's head from his body.  
– Sora, did you know who that man was from the beginning? she asked the former that edged a traitorous margin closer to Xehanort, looking rightfully frightened for his sake.  
She pointed Defender at Xehanort:  
– How could you consider working together with him?  
Her voice scraped acidly, like the words themselves were burning her throat.  
– I thought you were fine with it, like you were Vanitas, Sora responded while cowering like a rabbit in front of a lion.  
– Vanitas was a tool, she snarled.  
– As soon as I relearn how to walk in a straight line, I’m gonna get you for that, Vanitas cried out in the background.  
– This man who you kept me from killing orchestrated the events that ruined me and my friends’ lives, Aqua continued.  
– … Everything he told you about being willing to help, or that getting stuck here wasn’t part of his plans, are lies.  
Xehanort’s grip around the keyblade hardened, his body arching in a tiny but noticeable manner, like a threatened cat was hiding underneath his skin. Sora looked around his shoulder toward him, brow furrowed in thought.  
– Not this time, I don’t think…  
– ...Sora…  
– ...Please listen Aqua. The keyblade war has ended. Darkness lost. Xehanort doesn’t have any reason to be plotting against…  
– ...What do you mean “darkness lost”?  
:Xehanort was staring at him.  
Sora winced:  
– Let’s clear all that out later. My point is that Xehanort was never necessarily a bad guy…  
– ...What? the three people around him exclaimed in one mouth.  
– Em … Okay, maybe not “never a bad guy”...  
– ...Listen goody-two-shoes, Vanitas called from where he had rolled over to face the conversation.  
– … I served the old Xehanort willingly. He was probably the closest thing to a dad I could ever have, and I knew from the start that he wasn’t a good person.  
– You have no idea what he did, Aqua said in a voice that would make the three headed guard dog of the underworld whimper.  
– I get it, I took that too far but … You wanna help defend yourself Xehanort?  
The addressed regarded him like he would a person trying to defuse a bomb by cutting wires at random.  
– Your blundering attempts to paint my morality in a positive light will likely only convince her that my older counterpart has brainwashed you, he said.  
– That’s it. Sora brightened.  
– … Aqua, this isn’t the same Xehanort who hurt Ventus and possessed Terra. He comes from a point in the past where he hadn’t even thought of doing those things. That’s why he looks to be our age.  
Light blue eyes widened in surprise, before narrowing in suspicion.  
– That could explain it, she said.  
– … Another possibility is that he has stolen the body of a new victim.  
– She will never listen. There’s no use trying to adhere her to your logic, Xehanort mumbled.  
Sora, who did not look away from Aqua for a single moment, might as well have had his ears frozen over.  
– You have to believe me Aqua. Do you think I would lie up a crazy story like that? he said.   
The only thing moving on Aqua was the grip around Defender, loosening one moment; gripping tighter the next.  
– Before this trail of thought gives you any ideas … Xehanort said, causing her to snap her searing gaze toward him.  
– … Killing me here and now won’t cause me to magically disappear from the timeline.  
– Pity, Aqua hissed, then closed her eyes, breathing in deeply.  
– What does the names Ventus, Terra and Eraqus say to you?  
When she looked at Xehanort again he met her gaze without wavering.  
– I learned about them only after I travelled to this time to help my future self with his goals, he said.  
– … Terra was controlled by Xehanort, Ventus I only ever saw and Eraqus … I became aware that my older self killed him.  
While he talked Aqua was studying him, anger pushed away in favor of a blank expression. The moment after he stopped speaking, she opened her mouth…  
The dune shook. Sora cried out, spreading his legs wide as to not fall over. The ones who had their balance compromised could not manage this feat, Aqua and Xehanort tripping down on all fours and Vanitas flailing to put himself upright.  
– What is...  
Sora had though to cry: “What is happening?” then his gaze fell to the keyblade he was clutching. His mouth fell open. Oops.  
An arm shoot up from the sand five feet away from Vanitas, broad and black like a charred tree trunk, it’s palm open toward the sky, sand streaming between the fingers. Cursing words more shocking to the system than the suddenly-appearing limb itself, Vanitas begun crawling away.  
The arm slammed into the ground, throwing up a geyser of sand. Vanitas lost his balance, fell face forward into dirt, spluttered sand out of his mouth with a growl, then the ground heaved sideways and he begun rolling downward with a yelp.  
A broad back was following the arm out of the sand. A head that looked as if wrapped in black seaweed emerged, swaying back and forth. Two nodes of yellow lights glowed from deep within them. A hoarse roar, more pressure than sound, erupted from an nonexisting mouth as it’s head stopped it’s erratic movement, dots of light focusing on the people with the keyblades.  
– A giant heartless, Aqua cried out.  
– A darkside, Sora elaborated.  
– Whatever kill it, Vanitas shouted, barely managing to scramble away from the darkside absentmindedly putting down it’s palm on top of him.  
With a hand that could fit Sora in its palm, the darkside reached out toward him. Nicely enough it had picked the one target who retained the ability to jump out of its range.  
As Sora leaped, the sand trembled once more and a layer of ice cracked, erupting beside Xehanort who tumbled down on his knees and hid his face in a sleeve as dust filled the air. Below him the ground began rising. With a startled look he waved his free arm erratically to keep balance, then disappeared. At the same time he reappeared on unmoving ground, a bat like wing, large like the sail of a boat, unfolded where he had been sitting in yet another explosion of flying sand.  
Sora, who was watching with a gaping mouth, thought that the wings unfurling were like those on the Chernabog demon he’d fought once.  
What dug itself out of the sand was however, though smaller and with differing features, another darkside. Gurgling, it hefted a muscular body upward, resting its weight on massive knuckles and swinging its head around toward Xehanort like a hound catching a scent. The edge of its seaweed appendages were long enough to brush against the sand, painting strokes in it as it angled its frame forward.  
Xehanort pushed himself up to a standing and slid his feet slowly into a fight or flight stance, clenching his teeth as he calculated the likelihood of his legs carrying him. That was when the darkside lunged.  
It made a gorilla like leap, thundering towards Xehanort with the seismic force of a charging rhino, only twice as large.  
Xehanort started. Darksides were not supposed to move that quick.  
Most others would not have had the time to dodge, though “not have the time” was a hard thing for Xehanort to pull off. The second that the giant would have trampled over him, he had moved twelve feet away, leaning against his keyblade-crutch while waving his hand to summon a ring of spectral daggers, and sending them toward the darkside’s shoulders and neck where they shattered into clittering splinters against the tough hide.  
Growling, the darkside swept it’s arm sideways in a swing that would have shattered Xehanort’s lower body, only to find its target gone once again.  
– Xehanort! Sora cried out, though the sound drowned in the rumbling and hiss of shifting sand when the first darkside begun moving as well.  
He turned his head in time to see it reach toward Aqua, who tried to step out of the way only to stumble down on her knees.  
– Aqua, he shouted and rushed toward her.  
– … I'll help…  
With a roar she swung Defender, pillars of ice shooting out of the ground before her in a straight line toward the darkside, skewering flesh all the way from its wrist to the shoulder. Grains of sand jumped up and down as the darkside trembled in pain, jerking backwards from the pillars that broke and clattered to the ground. Smoke billowed from the holes.  
Sora slowed to a stop and blinked. She hadn’t even shouted a spell to conjure that.  
– Okay, I’ll help Xehanort, he called.  
The darkside that was hunting the aforementioned tackled and slammed it’s arms down wherever he appeared and disappeared, as if playing an unfairly hard game of whack-a-mole. It did not escape Sora’s notice however, that despite Xehanort looking untouchable, he was not taking a single step outside of the teleporting and did not wear his usual overconfident smirk. If he ran out of magic it would be trouble.  
Pointing Kingdom Key at the darkside’s neck, Sora breathed in deeply, then activated Shotlock, zipping like an arrow toward the spot where he’d put his focus. Gripping his blade with both hands he swiped a x-pattern across the back of the seaweedy skull. With a howl the darkside reared backward and shook its head madly.  
– What’s with this thing? Sora cried out, clinging to the not-quite-bones-but-hard-enough things protruding from the shoulders while the darkside bucked.  
This was not his first rodeo, and he pinched his fingers stubbornly like a tick around the tiny handholds, closing his eyes when seaweed strands slapped against his face.  
The flap of wings startled him. He opened his eyes to the lurching sensation of the darkside beating its wings mightily and rising into the air. This wouldn’t be his first rodeo on a flying creature either, though when the darkside sailed away, the thought struck him that if it carried him too far he risked not being able to find his way back. Was separating him from the rest its plan? Could darksides make plans?  
Glancing downward he spotted the shrinking figure of Xehanort staring up at him with shocked eyes, and the spot where Aqua engaged its kin, violet sparks flying from her ice magic, then the darkside crossed the edge of the dune and dove, the heavy body quickly picking up momentum. Sora blinked away tears that formed from the air rushing against him.  
Could he jump off at this speed? He should have thought of doing that before it started to go this fast.  
Clenching his teeth, he pushed against the air pressure. As soon as he managed to stand up on his knees he pointed Kingdom Key towards one of the beating wings.  
– Freeze!  
The keyblade spluttered out a handful of snowflakes, then stopped glowing. Sora was forced to press himself flat once more as the darkside veered sideways, passing by another dune. Apparently after the attraction spell and the shootlock, Kingdom Key had decided that it’d depleted too much magic.  
– Only one spell. Just let me do one more, he said while pushing himself upward again, narrowing his eyes toward the tip of the keyblade, urging the magic within his mind.  
A sputtering ball of light begun growing at the top. A start. Forcing his arms not to tremble Sora held the blade upward.  
What Sora did not know was that he and the darkside were being pursued, and on the subject of things that Sora did not know: Xehanort was actually able to fly.  
Kinda. Instead of flowing weightlessly through the air like his older versions had liked to do, his flying was more akin to gravity defying leaps, allowing him to keep pace with the darkside with only the occasional cheating time stop. The one downside to this halfly airborne way of travelling was that it made him look more like a human bouncing ball than he was comfortable with, especially the instances he stumbled due to still feeling woozy from the ride in that dastardly attraction float.  
With the low growl of a wolf finding itself one greater leap away from felling prey, he pushed his feet back with enough force to create a crater in the sand, and shoot toward the target. His whip snapped like a mad viper into his hand, stretching out toward the darkside and gluing itself to its left wing. Thin as Xehanort was, like a straw figure in comparison to the creature he’d latched onto, it would seem like this action could only serve to get him tugged along as well, however he showed no such misgivings. With the growl in his throat turning into an outright roar, he tugged, and the entirety of the wing snapped backward.  
The sharp stop had Sora bash his jaw into the darkside’s back. He’d barely had a moment to wonder if he’s cracked his teeth before the darkside turned lopsided and begun plummeting to the earth. It all spinned faster than the mind could process. Just before the creature smashed into the sand, Sora had pushed his legs beneath him and jumped away, narrowly avoiding getting crushed beneath the creature.  
The sand received him with typical though love, grains scraping his palms and rushing into his mouth. He had parted his lips to cough, when he realized that his body was not coming to a still. In fact he was rolling down a steep slope.  
In the corner of the eye he saw the darkside tumble in a similar fashion, pulling a lavine worth of sand with it. The rolling down hill at least gave him a stable enough sense of which way was up and which way was down that he could turn around with his feet downward and his back against the sand, pushing his hands down to start brazing.  
Before he got far enough in his efforts that he could tell if they were futile or not, the slope decided to be nice and debauched onto the ridge of another outcropping dune formation. Sora let his head settle against the ground for a moment, enjoying air that wasn’t filled with suffocating sand, then rolled to his feet, backing away from the darkside that threw itself from side to side in spasmodic efforts to get up, as likely to kill him though accident as though intent. The wings hung listlessly like a pair of wrinkly curtains from its back, neither expanding nor folding. They looked about as useful now as bundles of twigs bound in black leather. That sensation of a rumbling pressure filled the air as the darkside turned its eyes toward Sora.  
Kingdom Key, which Sora had dropped during the way down, reappeared like a reassurance in his hands.  
Come on, we can take ‘em, it seemed to whisper as he clutched it tight.  
That was when Xehanort appeared above the darkside’s head, bringing down his keyblade like a club upon it one, two, three times. The darkside shuddered, struggling to react to what was going on. With a cry Sora rushed forward to help him deliver punishment. He hit the head from the right, pushing it, toward Xehanort who retaliated with a similar swing.  
They bashed the creature’s head between eachother like that, until the darkside — definitely getting a concussion at this point — jerked backwards out of reach. It leaned back, head slumping listlessly as if slipping out of consciousness, then it entered a second breath, straightened and the heart shaped vacancy in its torso filled with red light.  
Xehanort sent a stream of knives onto the creature. Paying no attention to this, it unleashed a red comet from the chest that rose into the air like a balloon of red lava. It stayed in the air for a moment, then fell in a trail of whistling flame. The first orb was followed by another, then another.  
Both keyblade wielders located the openings in the barrage with practised gazes, and danced between the attacks on sand that was turning into glass from the sweltering heat. Xehanort avoided the orbs in tandem with Sora, the delerium mostly gone from his body language, however when the rain of orbs only went on without any hint of ceasing long after a normal darkside would have stopped, he was the first to look like the dodging was straining him.  
We have to turn this battle around now, Sora though and ran to Xehanort’s side.  
– Let’s do a team attack, he said while grasping the other’s shoulder.  
Xehanort’s immediate reaction was to push him.  
He landed on his back with a startled sound, propped himself up on, froze at the sensation of air getting fairly toasty, then looked up at a ball of molten magic descending like the sun toward him. Feeling the whites of his ogling eyes dry from the heat, he twisted around and scrambled like a dog on slippery ice away from the ensuing explosion when the orb collided with the ground. He could smell the soles of his shoes melting.  
Xehanort had not bothered to see what happened to him, instead moving closer to the darkside. While Sora stumbled to a standing, he planted himself firmly before it and inhaled. A blue clock face alighted itself beneath his feet, growing to encompass the darkside.  
– Skip! he commanded.   
Sora didn’t know if he’d blinked for a second or two, because what was playing out in front of his eyes didn’t line up in a manner that his brain could comprehend. The minute hand jumped from one to six without him seeing it move, and the darkside flickered. Instead of leaning back in the process of producing more projectiles it postured forward, resting heavily on its knuckles with a wearily hanging head.  
If the answer to this conundrum was time magic, the mechanics behind it would surely hurt his brain. Finishing the heartless off came before everything else, thus Sora temporarily ignored his confusion as well as the knot of anger in his stomach that cried out in offense at his supposed-to-be-ally-all-hatches-buried nearly turning him into grilled meat, and rushed forward.  
As he was moving, Xehanort braced against the darside’s left fist and leaped above it. He held his keyblade above his head, roared and brought it down with a force that would have made Axel’s berserker buddy impressed. He hit the darkside on the skull with a great crack, sending the entire creature reeling forward.  
Homing into exactly where the lumbering head would land, Sora willed his legs to sprint a league faster, skidded beneath the darksides chin and jabbed Kingdom Key upward.  
The tip of the blade stabbed into the mess of appendages, sinking in to the hilt through the enemy’s own momentum. A shudder, coursed through the creature, then, reverberating through Kingdom Key’s metal, Sora thought that he felt a final deep sigh as darkside evaporated into wisps of dark matter.  
Sora straightened while Xehanort gently floated down to the ground. For a while the only thing heard was the both of them catching their breath, then Xehanort let his keyblade disappear with a metallic sound, like a sword being sheathed in the distance, and, after Sora followed suit:  
– I’m waiting for a thank you.  
The words themselves weren’t half as bad as the way Xehanort said them. They had that smug tone that the villains seemed to love using, those bad apples which Donald, Goofy and he often encountered during their escapades. He’d personally dubbed it the I’m-smarter-stronger-and-enjoys-watching-you-fail voice.  
– For what, pushing me straight into the darkside’s attack? he snarled back.  
– How about, for running a marathon to keep it from flying away with you to the edge of the horizon.  
Sora clacked his jaws together with a growl. The absolute frustrating thing about Xehanort was his ability to in some manner back up his superior tone, able to twist a conversation to always seem like he was in the right.  
If Sora wanted to sound ungrateful, he could claim that he would have been able to stop the darkside on his own. With his keyblade depleted of magic, was that true however?  
– … Regarding my reaction to you grabbing a hold of me out of nowhere, can you blame me for retaliating when the last time you did that, what happened to me next was getting sucked into a vortex made out of your wazerga?  
Xehanort continued relentlessly pushing his conceited righteousness further. Sora curled his hands into fists.  
– You’re right. I owe you for saving me. Thank yo…  
Xehanort’s blue whip curled around Sora’s legs and tugged them out from beneath him, sending him face first into the sand.  
– Speaking of things that you owe me, that was only the beginning of me paying you back for that stunt with the teacups, Xehanort said, a cruel smile edging his words.  
Fine. That was it. Young-Nort was in an acute need of a beat down.  
Having conveniently located the only firm stone in the entire dune behind his heel, Sora pushed himself off the ground and straight into the other’s stomach with a head that Xehanort would likely describe as decently thich.  
Perhaps the surprise factor was to blame, or that Xehanort had also exhausted his magic, but no time bending kept Sora from hitting where he’d intended. What he hadn’t intended was that Xehanort would slipp on a glassy patch of melted sand and fall backwards, and that the sand would give away, sending both of them tumbling down the verge of the dune in a stream of indignant yelling.  
The fall lasted for a ridiculously endless amount of time, during which elbows were liberally jabbed into faces and knees into stomachs. It ended with Xehanort slamming down into a ditch of packed dirt, far harder than their sand slide, with Sora landing on top of him.  
It did not take long for the former to begin struggling with the urgency of a cat clawing its way out of a bathtub.  
– Don’t touch me!  
Sora was happy to oblige, however in the middle of pushing himself away from the other he stopped and stared forward.  
– What …  
– I said, don’t touch me!  
– Wait, look over there.  
In a fumbling manner, were he tried to scramble away and point at the same time, he made the fuming other look toward in front of them. Xehanort’s tongue that had curled beneath the weight of all the berating he felt prepared to lash out with, flattened against the bottom of his mouth.  
The both of them had rolled down to the flat ground that snaked between the various dunes. At the moment they were staring toward the top of yet another mountain of sand, specifically the flaring whisps stretching across its ridge. It was the kind of supple strands of light that you could see break through overcasts of black clouds if you watched the sky from a distance, their color warm outlined against remorseless black to a lighter color.  
– Is it rare for light to be shining in the Realm of Darkness? Sora asked, to which Xehanort scoffed:  
– Realm of Darkness — Aren’t you answering your own question?  
He hadn’t finished the sentence before Sora sprinted over to the dune and begun climbing his way up with the help of both scrambling hands and kicking feet, fighting against the shifting sand that would have him glide down.  
Xehanort, who suspected that a third round of excessive spinning today would put his balance out of commision forever, took longer to rise to his feet, but he did follow.  
There were few things more hateful than climbing an oversized sand dune. Despite this Sora moved with the energy of someone possessed, clearing the, at least two hundred meter tall, mountain in a couple of minutes. When he passed the ridge he froze up, staring forward.  
Rather than falling for the desire to beg Sora to describe what he was seeing Xehanort pinched his lips and pushed his body to move faster without resorting to going on all fours. Once joining Sora at the top, he furrowed his brow.  
A pale aurora borealis clung to the horizon, threads of light curving outward like seaweed in a camly rocking underwater orchard. It haloed a core of intenser light, shining white from behind towering ridges of black mountains. They watched the display for three, maybe four seconds, then the light dimmed, the spectral colors disappearing, and the sky became as black as before.  
– Wow, Sora breathed, and turned around towards Xehanort who hoped that the incoming question wouldn’t be “Did you see that?” because he wasn’t blind.  
– Did you feel that?  
Before Xehanort could answer this quite different query, a static crackle made both of them jump.  
– Where…  
– ...Your pocket.  
Sora turned toward where Xehanort pointed, finding that — Yes, the scratchy screeching was sounding from one of the many nifty pockets sewn onto his pants.  
– What should I do? he cried at Xehanort, looking up with the wide eyes of someone who had found a bomb strapped to his chest.  
– See what it is, Xehanort replied, to Sora’s visual dismay, but sure, discovering what made the noise would be better than ignoring it.  
He put his hand into the pocket with the gingerness of someone expecting to feel a rat trap smack down on his fingers. What he instead fumbled loose from the narrow space it had been pressed into, was a metal plate with a flickering screen embedded upon it. Though Xehanort wasn’t as quick to recognise Sora’s gummiphone for what it was, he could relax when he saw the the tension drop off the other. Sora chuckled.  
– It’s only the gummi phone.  
– Does it do this often?  
– Well … No.  
Sora wrinkled his forehead at the device, which picked that moment to snap as if the electronic waves from it had broken like a branch.  
e … skt …  
Xehanort and Sora both startled. The latter looked wide eyed at the former, asking with his gaze if it had been his imagination.  
… st … k ... he … o …  
– Hello?  
After Sora spoke into the machine, the sound filtered through clearer, noise becoming more clearly a voice, crying fracturing words that drowned in the buzzfeed.  
– Who is it? Sora tried.  
The gummi phone cracked and the voice disappeared. The static settled down into a low murmur which eventually ceased with a click of electronics. Xehanort sighed. Though he couldn’t phantom why, the voice disappearing gave him a feeling of disappointment. He’d only ever felt something similar back when he’d failed to turn Sora into one of the thirteen Seekers of Darkness. — Such a waste of careful planning that flop had been. Obviously he couldn’t mention this association out loud.  
– I get it, Sora exclaimed.  
– What?  
– We’re supposed to head toward that light.  
Xehanort wrinkled his brow.  
– What?  
With a couple of springing steps, Sora clambered to the highest point of the summit, standing up on his toes and looking around in all directions.  
– Hope we can find our way back to Aqua and Vanitas. They might still be fighting the other darkside, and maybe they saw that light too, he said.  
– Yes, the bizarre phenomenon which you spontaneously decided that we should head toward like a pair of moths, Xehanort said, crossing his arms.  
– … Without giving me a compelling reason to not believe you have gone mad.  
– There’s too many tall dunes in this place.  
Xehanort narrowed his eyes, then, with the wave of an arm, sent a spectral dagger toward Sora, who reared back just in time to avoid being impaled.  
– Stop ignoring me, Xehanort hissed.  
Sora brought his hands together like he always did when preparing to summon his keyblade, then he got second thoughts, letting his arms drop to the side:  
– You got a bad habit of using your weapons on me before telling me off. How about you call out: Hey Sora, what you are doing right now is annoying. We should settle that before I riddle you with stab wounds, and … um … Yeah … What were you telling me?  
Xehanort rolled his eyes:  
– Where did this notion that we should head toward the light come from?  
– That’s ‘cause … Sora said, skidding down from the sand hill in a trail dust until he stood right before Xehanort and looked up at him with eyes as blue crystals of certainty.  
– … The light and the message on the gummi phone were connected, I think. The only ones who can contact me on the phone are my friends. They must know that we are here and tried to send us a message. We’re supposed to follow that light, I’m sure that’s what they want us to do.  
The excitement building in his sentences made Sora almost speak too fast to comprehend, every word out of his mouth accompanied by the, to Xehanort, now familiar, gesturing, this time less a fumbling of trying to convince with body language when his arguments didn’t sound like they held water; instead accompanying the conviction armoring them. A funny thing about Sora, Xehanort realized: The more uncertain and vague the concept, the more he seemed to be blessed with absolute surety.  
Following emotional impulses wasn’t inherently wrong for a keyblade wielder. “Let your heart be your guiding key”, went the old saying after all. However, how could Sora know for sure that this the phenomena had been his friends trying to contact him?  
Thinking about it, why had he had such a strange feeling after hearing the voices from the gummi phone. Hadn’t he also felt a similar compulsion to want to move towards that light?  
Yes, he had.  
Why? Because of instinct, the same way that heartless gravitated to shadows in the realm of light, or was something manipulating Sora and his’ emotions? Sora would naturally fall for it if a maliciosos presence planted the notion in his heart that he should head to a certain place. He tended to fall flat into traps of that kind.  
Xehanort foresaw the genesis of his future wrinkled forehead with how gravely he furrowed his brow right now. Seeing his expression, Sora lowered his arms:  
– All of that is just what my heart tells me. We can discuss if it’s a good idea or not after we find our way back to the others.  
Sound prioritisation. Xehanort tilted his head to the left:  
– I kept track of which direction the darkside flew. If we head this way Aqua and Vanitas should get into view shortly.  
– You did, Sora exclaimed and sagged in relief.  
– … It’s helpful having you on the same side for a change.  
– Let see if that will last, Xehanort said, walking past Sora and to the edge of the dune.  
– … If the keyblade master still wish to murder me when we return, I’ll make myself scarce.  
– That’s right.  
Sora’s expression turned somber as he ventured up to Xehanort’s side, peering at him curiously.  
– … You’re still alright with going back to where she is?  
Xehanort smiled down at him, the kind of expression that the sea witch Ursula would wear when she turned somebody into kelp.  
– If you think it’s futile to hope for a reconciliation between us, I just might lead us in the opposite direction, he said.  
– Don’t even joke about that, Sora replied, fidgeting between smiling at the gest — because he was just pulling his leg right? — and falling into a state of panic.  
Xehanort hummed, then skid down the slope.

It turned out Sora hadn’t needed to worry about either Xehanort leading him astray or the other half of the group not being able to dispose of their enemy.  
When Sora spotted Aqua and Vanitas, waiting cross legged where they last had left them, he came to the conclusion that Xehanort and he were the ones worse for wear after their battle, all sandy and ragged.  
As soon as she spotted them Aqua got to her feet and begun walking toward them. Fighting the temptation to put himself before Xehanort protectively, because that could bruise the feelings of both sides for opposite reasons, Sora inhaled deeply between grinded together teeth, then he couldn’t resist anyway and slipped halfway in between the two parties as they stopped a keyblade slash’s distance away from each other.  
Vanitas lounged on his stomach in the back, relaxed like a sunbather while watching with anticipation gleaming in the pale yellow of his eyes.  
– Good to see you made it back, Aqua said to Sora.  
Her eyes reminded him of the surface of a pond that could either be leading down to the center of the earth or only be a finger deep.  
– I’m glad you’re okay to, he replied, turning his head between her and Xehanort continuously.  
– … Could we not fight?  
Aqua looked at Xehanort who returned her gaze with a similar neutral expression.  
– I’m thankful that the darkside appeared, she said to which Xehanort arched an eyebrow.  
– … While going through the familiar notions of battling I had the chance to reflect.  
She stepped forward, Sora backing away to allow her to pass while clenching and unclenching his hands frettingly.  
– My master once told me that hearts will change with time. If you could put a boy beside himself as an old man, the very universe would consider them two different people. That’s why the keyblade you wield changes as you grow.  
Standing in front of Xehanort, never breaking eye contact:  
– Are you the Xehanort I know?  
The smile Xehanort made to that was a photo perfect copy of the last one he’d worn. Sora cursed inside of his head, convinced that Aqua would attack him again, however when Xehanort shook his head with a:  
– Not the one that you know. No, she turned around and walked back toward Vanitas.  
– From this point onwards I’m evaluating you … she said.  
– … To see if you were always rotten to your core.  
– That goes both ways, Xehanort called back, the taunt in his tone making Sora flinch.  
– … I’ll be interested to see if all of you’ll continue to be useful allies, or if you will burden me in the long run. Can’t say I’m interested in cooperating with people who can’t pull their weight.  
Vanitas snorted and Sora inhaled deeply.  
– We’re all getting along. Great, he said, chuckling sheepishly when the rest turned to him with varying levels of scepticism.  
Where they expecting him to say something else? Supposedly since the whole teaming up thing had been his idea … What was next? He’d been so consumed by the task of keeping everyone from killing each other. Well, there was actually one thing that had been bugging him.  
– First things first, he said.  
– … There are inconsistencies that we need to clear out.


End file.
